Lamar AlexanderRepublican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander will introduce a bill with Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin to help speed the development of Ebola treatments and vaccines.
The bill is designed to add Ebola to FDA's priority review "voucher" program, a program at the Food and Drug Administration designed to incentivize the development of new drugs for neglected tropical diseases.
Ebola is not considered a qualifying disease under current law, so drugmakers creating Ebola treatments and vaccines currently do not qualify for the voucher program. The bill seeks to change that immediately - "a step that should be taken given that we need our full arsenal of tools at work," a joint news release from the senators said.
"The world is in desperate need of a vaccine to prevent Ebola and a drug to treat it," Alexander said in the release. "This bill will help fight Ebola with a tool that encourages the development of necessary but unprofitable drugs-offering a reward for drug makers who invest the time and resources to develop drugs to treat, and hopefully cure, Ebola."
Alexander has hosted two Ebola fact-finding roundtables in Memphis and Nashville and will hold a third event Friday in Chattanooga to learn more about the Ebola threat and Tennessee preparedness.